12/21/12: The End. The Beginning

I woke up on the morning of 12/21/2012. So did my children, and judging from the activity on Facebook, so did you. Of course there exists the possibility that sometime today a comet could come screaming to earth, eliminating life.

More likely though, is that the Mayan Calendar signifies a magnificent, yet subtle change in the way we live. By subtle, I mean, that we will go about our everyday business and only later will we look back and see dramatic, magnificent change.

Shifts in Reality

Story traditions from many religions, cultures and prophecies don’t simply tell of a shift towards the light. They tell of a stronger, faster, more extreme play between light and dark. Shadow worker, Debbie Ford puts it this way, The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.

It’s a spiritual paradox.

In my own life the stark contrast between shadow and light was enormous in 2012. There was a divorce, the end of a 12 year marriage, which was both painful, scary and filled with grief and loss, but which also opened my life up to a previously ungraspable light, joy, freedom and an undeniable feeling of being on the right path. I learned essential spiritual lessons: that my soul will always get what she wants, and that to resist her will cause misery and that my inner wise woman will never, ever lead me down the wrong path.

2012 was the year of release and surrender for many. One friend put it this way, “2012 was about the emptying of the cup.”

Inner Voices

Other things are speeding up for me as well. My intuition is heightened. The still small voice has become loud and insistent. It tells me to do scary things and pretty mundane things too. It tells me to go ahead and spend the money on a re-branding for The Girl Revolution, to launch my life coaching business in 2013 without waiting for an “authority” to grant me permission and validation to fulfill my calling to help people navigate this shift.

Not only is the voice louder, but the feedback from listening or not listening is on fast forward.

It tells me to slow down and I don’t. Within months I get three tickets, a sprained ankle and a severely broken clavicle. Slow down . . . slow down . . . slow down . . . SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!!!!! Finally, I’m left with no other option.

I reason with the voice and it ends in disaster. I listen and it ends in miracles.

Declarations Powered Up!

I began this year with a declaration that I would surrender and release everything which no longer serves me, to make room for what does. It happened fast. Simultaneously, it felt like walking uphill in quicksand.

But there are other, less visible things I’ve released. Many, many beliefs about myself and my place in the world. My fear of Mean Girls and bullies. My political loyalties. My social circles. Alcohol. Forms of struggle and striving. My beliefs about money and the habits those beliefs attached to me.

I wish I could say that I gracefully opened up my hands and let these things peacefully fly away, like butterflies in the wind. What really happened is that my ego clung desperately to many of them until my higher self and God ripped them from my hands. Strategies that had always worked before stopped working. Drinking beer stopped being fun and climaxed when it took me three days to recover from my Divorce/Birthday party, also I witnessed my dad turn into a very ill alcoholic, a glimpse into a potential future. I struggled with money and became so miserable with worry that I no longer begged for money, but begged to be released from money controlling my happiness and well-being. Mean Girls and Bullies showed up periodically throughout the year, forcing me to stand up for myself and not buy into their shitty soul sucking energy. I let go of tremendous amounts of guilt and shame.

My old ways of being in the world simply stopped working for me. This is a pattern I’ve been witnessing around me, in the broader world. What was working, isn’t.

We keep doing what we’ve always done. We keep using the same strategies to live this life.

Until it doesn’t work anymore.

The Dance of Light & Dark

The dance of the light and dark is playing itself out right before our very eyes. A presidential election brings it to the surface.

Witnessing the Conservative Christian Right beat the crap out of gays, immigrants, liberals, women, minorities, other religious perspectives, the poor and anyone who has the audacity to get sick while being poor is enough to turn anyone’s stomach. Fear and anger consumes them and they want to wield war-designed machine guns to protect them from crazy people wielding war-designed machine guns, who are also consumed with anger. Then, shouting warnings about judgement day, while doing everything they can to manifest it as a reality, with what appears to be absolutely no light consciousness whatsoever. We believe in Jesus’ word to Love One Another, but why the hell should we take care of you losers?

Non-religious people aren’t much more palatable. Using inane arguments about a woman’s right to knock off her own off-spring at the rate of a million per year, so they can choose—what? While paradoxically arguing that the gender-cide in other countries, an abortion rate of the same number but limited to girls, is unconscionable. Becoming incensed that the other side would dare to address the issue of “legitimate rape,” while millions of the same women heatedly turn the pages of50 Shades of Grey, a very explicit series about the sexual, emotional and spiritual violence committed by an older man against a naive virgin. No means no, you sick perverted bastards, but explicit details about consensual rape and getting the shit beat out of us and being demeaned and dehumanized during sex is making us so very horny.

Watching people trounce on humanity itself makes a person feel like taking a shower. Good people, most. But, distorted ways of attempting to bring about their version of right instead of light.

The dance goes on. Light. Dark.

Awakening to Consciousness

Meanwhile, I believe a shift is happening. I see Conservative Christians becoming more loving and accepting to those around them who do not align with their religious views. I see millions of non-religious people devoting their lives not to a church, but to a deep spirituality that expands faith, hope and love. I see transformation and light brought out of the very experiences that bring us to our knees in pain and surrender. Why humans need the dark to force us into chasing the light, I don’t know. But, it is a real phenomenon.

Unconsciousness appears to default to the dark, embracing cynicism, pessimism, depression, anxiety, anger, fear, addiction and the fall of mankind. It takes far more diligence and faith to turn towards the light in the faith of the overwhelming evidence that we’re screwed. It takes consciousness to recognize the fear and anger within and turn away from it. It requires far more courage to have something tragic and terrible happen to you and then choose to heal anyway.

Genesis tells us that first there was dark, until God made a declaration, “Let there be light.” Perhaps it is not choosing the light that saves us and makes us better: but becoming whole, using the darkness for good as God appears to do.

The End. The Beginning. Love Wins.

I know how this drama ends. Love wins.

What I don’t know is how it’s going to play out for us. But, I have some ideas.

What was working for us won’t keep working. We will be forced to reinvent our way of living, our way of being, our way of interacting with our fellow humans. What we mean by the word “love” will have to shift.

We can, and I believe we will, declare over our planet, our families, our religions, our political systems and our schools an end to the old paradigms and a beginning of better ones.

I commit myself to playing full out. I commit to the journey of consciousness, awaking and wholeness. I commit myself to helping others navigate their own new way of being. I feel called to help other people declare a gentler transition through this shift in our reality.